Foreign Ministers Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov engaged in a debate during a discussion at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum regarding Baku's precondition for Armenia to amend its Constitution—a demand raised by the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister.

Bayramov stated that the justifications presented by Mirzoyan regarding Armenia's Constitution do not dispel Baku's concerns.

"The Declaration of Independence of Armenia states that a part of Azerbaijan’s territory is reunified with Armenia, and Armenia’s Constitution refers to this declaration. The peace agreement resolves many issues, but whatever international obligations may be enshrined in the peace agreement, it holds higher legal power than domestic legislation, except for the country’s Constitution and acts adopted by referendum.

If we try to focus only on the peace agreement without resolving the constitutional issue, the agreement will be invalid from day one, as it will contradict the country’s fundamental law. Is the population of Armenia ready to put an end to territorial claims against its neighbors or not?

Mirzoyan’s argument that they also have concerns about our Constitution is not valid. The Constitution of Azerbaijan does not mention any geographical name of a territory belonging to Armenia, and the Armenian side knows this well. I do not believe our Armenian colleagues genuinely think that Azerbaijan’s Constitution contains territorial claims against Armenia, and they have not raised this issue for such a long time,” the Azerbaijani minister noted.

Mirzoyan countered Bayramov’s remarks with further arguments.

“The preamble to our Constitution mentions our Declaration of Independence, but from a legal standpoint, only those provisions of our Declaration of Independence that are quoted verbatim in the text of the Constitution carry legal weight and are binding. The statement that concerns our Azerbaijani partners is not quoted in our Constitution.

In September of last year, our Constitutional Court concluded that delimitation is based on the declaration.

It states that our borders are those that existed between the Soviet Socialist Republics at the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. If we sign this treaty, the agreement will be submitted to Armenia’s Constitutional Court as part of the ratification process. If our Constitutional Court again states that this document is consistent with our Constitution, then no further proof is needed to show that the issue is resolved. This again is a matter of political will: are we building peace or not?” the Armenian minister emphasized.